Strategies for establishing policy, environmental, and systems-level interventions for managing high blood pressure and high cholesterol in health care settings: a qualitative case study.

Introduction: Policy, environmental, and systems-level interventions are part of a comprehensive approach to managing high blood pressure and high cholesterol, which are key risk factors for heart disease and stroke. In this qualitative case study, we identified clinical practices in health care organizations that used policy, environmental, or systems-level interventions to improve patient outcomes for these conditions. Our 4 objectives were to describe 1) policy, environmental, and systems-level interventions; 2) enabling factors and barriers that affected implementation; 3) methods for evaluating the success of the intervention; and 4) lessons learned from the health care practices that implemented these interventions.

Good laboratory practices for waived testing sites: survey findings from testing sites holding a certificate of waiver under the clinical laboratory improvement amendments of 1988 and recommendations for promoting quality testing.

Under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA), simple, low-risk tests can be waived and performed with no routine regulatory oversight in physicians' offices and various other locations. Since CLIA was implemented, waived testing has steadily increased in the United States. Surveys conducted during 1999-2004 by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and studies funded by CDC during 1999-2003 evaluated testing practices in sites holding a CLIA Certificate of Waiver (CW).

Practice patterns of testing waived under the clinical laboratory improvement amendments.

Objectives: To determine operational practices in laboratories operating under a Certificate of Wavier (waived laboratories), or equivalent, under the Clinical Laboratory Improvements Amendments (CLIA) of 1988 when performing tests designated as having an insignificant risk of an erroneous result (ie, waived tests).

Methods: Waived laboratories that were part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Laboratory Sentinel Monitoring Network project in the states of Arkansas, New York, and Washington were surveyed about their quality control (QC) and quality assurances (QA) practices when performing waived testing. Arkansas and Washington sent out similar questionnaires, whereas on-site surveys were conducted in New York.